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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23491465">Reunion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireworksinthenight/pseuds/fireworksinthenight'>fireworksinthenight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW Comics), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen, Scraps</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2018-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2018-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:27:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,482</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23491465</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireworksinthenight/pseuds/fireworksinthenight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by In Search of Shadows by EchoKazul.<br/>Karai's task was to help find a missing heir. And if she thought strange that April was now caring for him, she could never have imagined who he truly was...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Reunion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/14519484">In Search of Shadows</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoKazul/pseuds/EchoKazul">EchoKazul</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <em>This isn't canon with everything in the My Shadows Found sequel.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Thanks to the author for letting me play with this AU!</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Archived from Deviantart, 04/05/2020.</em>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>April’s apartment</em>
</p><p>Karai listened to the heated conversation, her features hidden under a large hood. She had no intention to interfere while April quarreled with the man at her side.</p><p>Because of clan politics, she was now in charge of helping and protecting that man, Chaplin, while he accomplished his mission.</p><p>Which was nothing less than getting back the child he had abandoned almost a decade ago. A child that had mysteriously disappeared from the child care radar four years ago.</p><p>Karai's clan was powerful, and she still had spies in New York – even if it was the first time she set foot again in the city since… since… some events, too painful for the grown woman to recall.</p><p>Nonetheless, they might never have found the child if he hadn't gone to a public hospital two months ago, and if he didn't look so much like his father.</p><p>He had a different name now, a name that Karai wasn't comfortable with.</p><p>When the proud clan leader had learned that April Hamato, formerly April O'Neil, was now taking care of the boy, she had wanted to cancel the whole operation. But it would have weakened her already precarious position in her clan – not to mention that they would have sent someone else to do the job.</p><p>At least, if she was the one doing it, she could ensure that certain… facts… about April remained hidden.</p><p>Like her marriage with a mutant turtle.</p><p>Karai would have loved to know why she had decided to take a boy under her wing when she had so much to hide and protect. Children weren't reliable. What if this one betrayed her secret? Did she hide it from him? But then, it would mean that Donatello would be excluded from an important part of his wife's life. Karai deemed that to be unlikely.</p><p>Of course, she had had no contact with the Hamato family for a long time, so maybe things had changed. And she wasn't going to ask April.</p><p>She was there incognito. She was decided not to talk, and her hood was hiding her features. She probably looked ridiculous, but she didn't care.</p><p>She felt truly sorry for April. She had no doubt that the red-haired woman had gotten attached to the boy, but Chaplin's rights as the father were stronger.</p><p>Not to mention it would be awkward for April to explain before a court why the boy's file had been falsified. She would have to resign to her fate.</p><p>Still, at least she seemed to sincerely love the boy, while Chaplin's motives were dubious. Not only had he abandoned his own child, but if he wanted him back now, it had nothing to do with parental love. He already had children in Japan, children he cared about.</p><p>No, if a twelve years old boy was about to be teared away from his adoptive family, it was because Chaplin's parents had ordered it. An heir had to be produced for juicy contracts to be signed, something about ensuring a dynasty… A male heir, meaning that Chaplin's daughters couldn't do the job.</p><p>For so many people, money made the world go round.</p><p>Karai closed her eyes at a particularly furious roar from April. The Foot clan leader had told Chaplin that it was a bad idea to suggest a compensation payment for the boy.</p><p>The boy.</p><p>She couldn't make her brain call him differently.</p><p>Of all the names he could have had… why the one that still broke her heart, all these years later?</p>
<hr/><p>Behind the door, Leo was listening intently to the conversation, his cat Fearless squeezed in his arms. The feline was strangely silent. Maybe he was feeling his human's distress, or maybe he was too choked to meow.</p><p>Leo struggled to keep his feelings under control. Behind that door, behind that wooden door and a mere few feet from him, was the father that had abandoned him when he was but four years old. The father who had abandoned him, who hadn't bothered to keep in contact. Leo had been passed through so many foster homes because nobody wanted him…</p><p>No, that man wasn't his father. His genitor maybe, but not his father. Fathers want their children, they take care of them.</p><p>Leo swallowed hard.</p><p>His genitor had resurfaced. To take him to Japan, halfway around the world. One of his biggest fears had come true.</p><p><em>Why now? </em>Leo wondered. <em>What happened to make him change his mind?</em></p><p>Not that it changed anything. After years of struggling to find his true place in this world, he had found his lost family. His lost <em>brothers</em>. The colors that lighted his life, that brought joy and safety and love…</p><p>There was no way he would allow to be taken away from them.</p><p>He wanted to run back to the lair, where Mikey, Donnie and Raph were waiting for him. He would drop school, he would stay hidden. He had homeschooled himself for years, he was ninja, this wasn't a problem.</p><p>Except April would be in trouble with the law if she refused to give him away.</p><p>Leo bit back his tears. What if she was accused of kidnapping, or worse? What if she ended up in prison because of him?</p><p>Unthinkable.</p><p>He had to step in.</p><p>He had to step in, and hope the voice of an underage boy would be listened to.</p><p>Leo took a deep breath. He released Fearless – who immediately ran away with an indignant 'meow' - and left his hiding place. The noise of the cat had silenced the adults in the other room. Leo entered it with sure steps, his fear not showing an iota, came side to side with April – her cheeks were a bright pink and she looked furious, a mama bear if there ever was one, and he felt comforted - and he bowed to the man. There was a woman with him, who hadn't spoken yet.</p><p>"Hello, Sir. I'm Leonardo. I'm honored that you want me to live with you and your family," – a lie, but it couldn't hurt to be polite – "but I must inform you that I'm not following you to Japan. My place is there."</p><p>There. He had said it. With a calm and steady voice.</p><p>"So you are Leonardo," the man said. His voice was half-surprised and half-disapproving. "I'm afraid you don't have a say in the matter."</p><p>Leonardo forced his shoulders to remain relaxed and straightened his upper body to meet the man's gaze. He felt some comfort in seeing him flinch. People had often trouble holding his sapphire gaze for some reason.</p><p>"With all due respect," he emphasized, "I'll stay in New York."</p>
<hr/><p>Karai was intrigued when the boy stepped inside the room. He had been listening to the whole conversation, then? She hadn't been aware of his presence.</p><p><em>He would make a stealthy ninja, </em>she mused.</p><p>Then he talked, and something in his voice made her uneasy. Maybe it was the edge… An edge that was very unusual for a boy this young.</p><p>When he straightened up and she took a glance at his eyes, she froze in disbelief.</p><p>This eyes… This sapphire eyes…</p><p>"I'll stay in New York," he was saying.</p><p>The way he was standing, proud and fierce, and yet relaxed, ready to strike any instant but unwilling to be the one to begin the fight.</p><p>April's protective attitude towards him, but also the way she was looking at him, like he was a miracle.</p><p>It couldn't be. It couldn't be.</p><p>His name was Leonardo… Oh gods, how could his name be Leonardo?</p><p>It couldn't be.</p><p>Chaplin moved towards the boy, trying to grab his shoulder maybe, and he gracefully escaped him, moving with a deadly grace that wasn't from this world, from this time, and that definitely wasn't childish…</p><p>"Leonardo?" She couldn't help whispering, her voice hoarse.</p><p>Chaplin glanced at her.</p><p>"Yes. My son's name is apparently Leonardo now, you know that."</p><p>He sounded irritated, but Karai couldn't have cared less. That stupid, ignorant man. How could he have a child like that, how could he have <em>him</em> as a child?</p><p>No. Impossible. She was indulging in wishful thinking.</p><p>But her heart was swelling with hope, in spite of herself.</p><p>"Ka-Karai?" April gasped, incredulity written all over her face, and Karai threw her head back, and the hood fell, but she didn't care…</p><p>Because the boy was looking at her now. She had noticed his eyes' color before, but this was so different, so much more powerful, because it was his eyes to her eyes now, and even though she claimed that 'eyes are mirrors to the soul' was the oldest saying in the book, she knew with all her heart whom she was looking at…</p><p>The impossible had come true.</p><p>She let out a strangled pitiful sound, very unworthy of the leader of a powerful ninja clan.</p><p>"<em>Leonardo.</em>"</p>
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